Friday, December 30, 2011

All aboard the Ark!

The Animals came in two by two....

For a swap on Atcs for All. There came some confusion when early on someone asked if they were allowed to draw birds, to which it was replied that the Host actually intended for us not to draw birds, but that this swap was supposed to be for "animals". Now, this is one of my personal pet peeves - because as a dedicated ornithologist and bird lover, it really, really irks me when people seem to regard "birds"* as being something separate from all other animals. Birds are animals. Fish are animals. Reptiles are animals. Octopus are animals.

Anyway, to cut a short story shorter: Birds are now permitted. And to her credit, the Hostess just ignored my rant and did not get caught up in a typing tussle.

So of course, to thumb my nose at them further (actually, I was intending to do it this way anyhow) I chose to draw a pair from each of the main animal branches - reptile, bird and mammal.






As per all these swaps that require me to draw a male and female of the same species, I tried to choose species that demonstrated sexual dimorophism. That is to say - the male and the female look quite different. In this case we have:
* The Ark and the dove (the ark was a swap requirement)
* A pair of Jackson's Chameleons (male has horns)
* Nyala pair (female is red)
* Himalayan Monal (male is blue)



* Another thing that sometimes puzzles me is why people sometimes have a phobia of all birds in general, due to the fact that they were attacked by a territorial and nasty bird like a magpie when they were a child. For some reason, being attacked by a large black and white bird makes them scared of dumpy, friendly fantails. That's like being attacked by a dog and developing a phobia of cats.

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